Lesson One
by ncfan
Summary: Cornelia gives Lelouch a piece of advice on being an older sibling.


I own nothing.

* * *

There was always a great uproar when a new prince or princess was born; that was how it had been since time immemorial. Never mind that by this point in time Charles zi Britannia had more children than most nobles had flower bushes growing outside of their ancestral homes. Never mind that the terms 'prince' and 'princess' didn't mean much within Pendragon, except for the most highly-ranked of the lot. It was always pandemonium.

Euphemia had wanted to see her new baby sister _now_—she'd managed to make that quite clear despite her vocabulary currently consisting of one and two-syllable words only—and a short visit in the afternoon absolutely would not do. Lady Marianne had laughed at her step-daughter's eagerness and assured Cornelia and her mother that it would be alright for Euphemia to stay the night. She was such a sweet child, after all; it wouldn't be any trouble. Frankly, Cornelia was surprised that Marianne could be so accommodating after giving birth.

It was at this point that Cornelia knew that she would have to volunteer to stay the night as well. Their mother would never allow Euphemia to go anywhere unless Cornelia was there too, to watch her. Lady Helena was, in short, pregnant and exhausted. She didn't like to get up out of bed and had on more than one occasion been heard to remark that she needed a break. If she knew that her older daughter had heard her saying such things, she showed no awareness of it.

"Oh? Thank you, Cornelia." Lady Helena's relieved smile clinched it.

Cornelia wasn't going to lie and say that she was completely comfortable with this. She always enjoyed spending time with Lady Marianne, that much was true, but she didn't like going to sleep in a strange bed. The Aries Villa wasn't her home. Trying to sleep here felt like letting her guard down when she just _knew_ one of her siblings was going to pull a prank.

Eventually, Cornelia tired of tossing and turning on the guest bed and kicked the covers off of her. _May as well get something to eat_, she thought to herself, and crept out of the room she had been given for the night.

The halls of the villa were dark and quiet, lit only by moonlight; the guards stood watch outside. Cornelia frowned as she began to navigate the house; she knew that the kitchen was somewhere downstairs, but where exactly, she wasn't sure. Oh well. There was nothing for it but to keep heading towards where Cornelia thought the main staircase was. Even without an audience, Cornelia didn't like to appear as though she didn't know where she was going.

As she traversed another hall, Cornelia noticed one of the doors hanging ajar. That was odd. There shouldn't have been any open doors but her own and, indeed, unoccupied rooms left unlocked after the servants' final inspection. Then again, Cornelia didn't know Aries Villa all that well, and everything she did recognize looked very different at night. It could have been someone's bedchamber. Still, better to check…

The moment Cornelia peered inside the room, she kicked herself mentally. In the dark gilded by moonlight she spotted the outline of familiar toys and pieces of furniture, gifts to the new princess, spotted the outline of the royal crib, and knew in an instant that this was Nunnally's nursery. But why was the door open? Cornelia set her jaw and slipped inside.

Once she stood in the room, she spotted something else. Someone small was standing over the crib, peering inside. At first, Cornelia thought it was Euphemia, and stepped forward, prepared to scold her sister for being out of bed at this hour, but as she drew closer, she realized that the child had short, dark hair.

"Lelouch?"

Lelouch jumped, and Cornelia felt guilty for a moment, recognizing that he hadn't heard her come in and hadn't even realized that she was standing next to him until she had spoken. He really had been so absorbed in his examination of his new sister. The little boy's stillness and the fact that he didn't seem to have been bothering Nunnally made her less inclined to scold him than she would have Euphemia (who surely would have tried to pull the baby out of her crib so they could play), but still, what was he doing here?

"Big sister," he mumbled, not meeting her gaze. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Cornelia thought she saw him set his jaw—an expression he'd picked up from her, no doubt.

"Lelouch, what are you doing here?" Cornelia asked, careful to keep her voice hushed so that Nunnally wouldn't wake up.

He shifted his weight before responding: "Seeing sister."

Lelouch, for all that he was frighteningly precocious for a child his age, could not always be persuaded to properly explain _anything_ on first try.

As it was, Cornelia wasn't really in the mood to try and get a proper explanation out of him. Maybe twelve hours later or twelve hours earlier, but not right now. She reached out and grabbed Lelouch's hand. "Well, it's sweet that you want to be with your sister, but you really need—"

"No!" Lelouch exclaimed, ripping his hand from her grasp. Cornelia glanced nervously at Nunnally's crib; she had no idea what to do with crying babies and really didn't want to wake up Lady Marianne at this time of night. "Don't like her."

"Well, you're just going to have to get used to her," Cornelia said bluntly. "Nunnally's not going to go away just because you don't like her." She grabbed his hand again and tried to pull him out of the room. "Now _come on_."

But Lelouch pulled his hand from her grasp once again and refused to move, planting his feet firmly on the ground. "No," he muttered, folding his tiny arms across his chest and looking for all the world like a much older (though still petulant; he was _definitely _drawing on Clovis) child.

Cornelia stared at him. She stared at him, and saw the deep ambivalence on his face for the first time. Slowly, she felt the beginnings of shame creep up from her stomach, into her chest. Mother would have done this better. Lady Marianne would have done this better. Even Guinevere, short-tempered as she was, would have done this better. Any one of them would have spotted his discomfort right away. Any one of them would have seen from the start that bossing Lelouch around wasn't the way to do this.

So she crouched down in front of Lelouch, wrapping her arms around her legs to keep her balance. "Lelouch?" She felt awkward; gentleness didn't come naturally to Cornelia at the best of times, and she never had to be delicate around perpetually-happy Euphemia, who, for all that she herself looked delicate, was a lot tougher than she looked. "Why don't you like Nunnally?"

Lelouch didn't answer her right away. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, frowning for so long that Cornelia began to think that maybe he was just going to wait in silence for her to give up and force him to go back to bed. But eventually he mumbled "Everybody's gonna forget 'bout me." The words were spoken with a good deal more hesitance than Lelouch usually employed, even at such a young age.

"Lelouch, everyone is _not_ going to forget about you just because you have a new sister," Cornelia told him. "I dare say you're impossible to forget," she remarked dryly.

Despite this, Lelouch didn't seem terribly reassured. He cast a cagey glance at the crib before going back to stare at the floor, tucking his arms even closer about his chest. Another tack would be needed, then. At least strategy was something Cornelia was good at.

"Look, Lelouch… You and I are special." He turned his gaze on her, and Cornelia nodded and smiled encouragingly. "Yes, we are. There aren't too many of his Majesty's children who can claim to have a blood sibling." It was well-known that many of the Emperor's marriages had been political ones with neither love nor affection in them. In fact, most of the Imperial Consorts didn't even live in Pendragon, instead keeping to their own lands. "I was the first. And now your mother has had another child, and you have a sister who is both your father and your mother's child.

"Lelouch, your mother won't love you any less because of Nunnally." Cornelia tried to remember if she had ever felt envious of Euphemia or jealous of how much of her mother's attention went into looking after her new baby, even if Euphie's nursemaid had handled most of the 'practical' concerns. She might have, at the start, but for the life of her she couldn't remember now. "And… Now you have someone you need to protect."

He looked at her skeptically—at least, as far as Cornelia could make out in the dark. Lelouch's facial expressions tended to be pretty exaggerated.

"Yes, really. Part of the job of an older sibling is to protect their younger sibling. Euphie is my little sister, and I would do _anything_ to protect her. One day, you'll feel the same way about Nunnally."

The boy's expression was still exaggeratedly skeptical, but eventually, he nodded. "'Kay."

"I'll take you back to your room, then."

Lelouch shook his head. "I want milk. _Hot_ milk."

Of course he did. It was a good thing Cornelia had been out of bed looking for the kitchen to start with. "Alright." _That I can do, even if hugging feels like the most awkward thing ever. _"Let's go get some milk, then."

Cornelia would never tell anyone that she had needed Lelouch's help to find the kitchen. She had no intention of anyone ever finding out that she had needed a toddler's help (however precocious a toddler he might have been) to find a kitchen. The fact that she _had_ needed her three-year-old brother's help was humiliating enough; to make it common knowledge would have been the end of any hope for dignity.

Surprisingly, the kitchen wasn't empty.

"Oh, dear." Lady Marianne laughed ruefully when she saw who was standing at Cornelia's side. Euphemia was sitting on a chair by the island, drinking greedily from a glass filled with milk. "I hope Lelouch hasn't been giving you any trouble, Cornelia."

Cornelia smiled brightly at her. "No, Lady Marianne, not at all. We just had a bit of a talk."

She didn't know if her advice would stick. Given how young Lelouch was, Cornelia didn't even know if he would remember the conversation they had had when they were older. But she supposed that she could hope that he would take her words to heart, so much so that it wouldn't matter if he remembered them or not. A little sister really was a gift.


End file.
